New York Mayor Bill de Blasio issued the new guidance Thursday, urging people to cover themselves to reduce the risk of transmission.
“It could be a scarf. It could be something you create at home, like a bandana,” de Blasio said.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti made a similar recommendation Wednesday, though he asked people not to wear medical or surgical masks.
In Laredo, Texas, residents will receive fines of up to $1,000 if they don’t cover their noses and mouths with “some form of covering” when entering a building open to the public, using public transportation or pumping gas.
Local officials are recommending stricter measures to slow down the spread of the virus as the number of cases surpassed 1 million worldwide.
In the United States — now the country hardest-hit by the pandemic — the virus has already infected more than 236,000 people from coast to coast.
But, “it’s within our power to modify those numbers,” Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told “CBS This Morning” on Thursday.
“If you really push hard on mitigation … you can modify the model,” Fauci said. “We need to push and push with the mitigation to try and get that number lower than the projected number.”
“While the current (coronavirus) specific research is limited, the results of available studies are consistent with aerosolization of virus from normal breathing,” according to a letter written by Dr. Harvey Fineberg, chairman of a committee with the National Academy of Sciences.
Recent developments
New York doctor says she feels like ‘a sheep going to slaughter’
In hard-hit New York, nurses and other medical personnel at the Bronx’s Montefiore Medical Center Moses Division told reporters they desperately needed N95 masks and other protective equipment.
A third-year resident there said she goes to work feeling “like a sheep going to slaughter.”
“My colleagues and I are writing our last will and testament. I’m 28 years old,” Dr. Laura Ucik said.
“We fear that we may not survive this pandemic and yet we show up every day,” she said. “We’re running out of (personal protective equipment), we’re running out of pain medicine, we’re running out of sedatives, we’re running out of oxygen masks.”
Thursday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo estimated that his state had “about six days” before its stockpile of ventilators, which he is sending to hospitals in need, runs out.
A day earlier, he cited a model that showed as many as 16,000 New Yorkers could die from the virus.
New York, now the epicenter of the outbreak, has reported more than 92,000 cases and 2,317 deaths. More than 51,000 of those infections have been in New York City, Cuomo said Thursday.
About 21,000 out-of-state medical professionals have volunteered to come into New York, Cuomo said Thursday.
“I thank them, I thank their patriotism, I thank their dedication and passion to their mission of public health,” he said.
Emergency medical services received a record number of emergencies each day, with a 50% increase over normal daily call volume, the New York City Fire Department said in a news release.
On Tuesday alone, FDNY EMS responded to 6,010 medical calls, Jim Long, a spokesperson for the department, told CNN.
‘What are you waiting for?’ California governor says to states without stay-at-home orders
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who in March became the first governor to issue a statewide order, argued that every state needed one.
“What are you waiting for? What more evidence do you need?” he said Wednesday “If you think it’s not going to happen to you, there are proof points all over the United States, all over the world.”
President Donald Trump said Wednesday he would not issue a national stay-at-home order because different states have different infection rates.
“You have to look — you have to give a little flexibility. If you have a state in the Midwest, or if Alaska for example doesn’t have a problem, it’s awfully tough to say close it down. We have to have a little bit of flexibility,” he said.
Early data: Malaria drug could shorten recovery time
The research has limitations, including that it was conducted in a very small group of patients with mild illness and has not been published yet in a peer-reviewed journal.
The Chinese study is promising, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the chief of the infectious disease department at Massachusetts General Hospital, told CNN Thursday.
But, she cautioned, “we’re not sure this can be generalized to all patients,” she said.
“They gave it to people who didn’t have (other chronic conditions), like cardiovascular comorbidity and liver disease and renal disease,” Walensky said.
The research at Wuhan’s Renmin Hospital focused on 62 patients — 31 who received hydroxychloroquine for five days, and 31 in a control group who received standard care. More than 80% of the patient receiving hydroxychloroquine had improved pneumonia, compared to 54.8% of the control group.
CORRECTION: This story has been updated to give the correct estimate for how many Americans live in states where they’ve been ordered to stay at home.
CNN’s Dave Alsup, Elizabeth Cohen, Jacqueline Howard, Elizabeth Joseph, Kristina Sgueglia, Shawn Nottingham, Amanda Watts, Joe Sutton, and Ryan Browne contributed to this report.
